Rahman Dahlan derides ‘stripped-down’ LRT3

Former minister says getting rid of five LRT stations is not cost-cutting and the new transit line will be made ineffective.

Five proposed stations for the Bandar Utama-Klang LRT3 line are to be scrapped. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Former minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan has derided the federal government’s plans for a stripped-down LRT3 transit system, saying that plans for scrapping several stations were not a cost-saving measure as claimed.

“Come on, stripped down version of LRT3 is not savings at all. It’s just a reduced-scale LRT,” he said in a series of tweets today.

“Many years later, when the line needs to be upgraded to the original specifications and scale, the cost would surely be more than today.”

Rahman said the plans for LRT3 announced yesterday would reduce the effectiveness of the system.

Yesterday, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said several changes were being made to the project in what he called a cost-cutting measure.

Three-car trains sets, instead of six-car sets, would be used, train depots made smaller, a 2km-long tunnel cancelled, and an underground station and five other stations scrapped.

The LRT3 stations scrapped were those proposed for Lien Hoe, Temasya, Sirim, Bukit Raja and Bandar Botanic.

Rahman, who was a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said transport lines would be rendered ineffective if these stations were scrapped.

Public transport projects would be successful if they covered as many areas as possible.

“Medium-density areas today will become high-density (areas) in the near future,” he said.

Rahman also said the government’s off-and-on decisions had “played havoc” with share prices of some Bursa-listed companies.

LRT3, or the Bandar Utama-Klang line, stretches 37km from Johan Setia, Klang, to Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya. Lim said the construction schedule had been extended from 2020 to 2024 to cut costs. -FMT